9:30 a.m. ur-texts schmur-texts, you say?

Cool analyses, adu... er, 'urtextians.' *snicker* I knew Chris would find the defining web page, Damien would have met it and Catherine get the apparent meaning of it. I say 'apparent,' cuz although she was right in that I did want to mean 'originality,' I meant it in an entirely different way... and not in the sense of 'you came first.'

As is plain to anyone who knows me, mentoring is never far from my mind, in matters having to do with students, teaching, the Internet, and now weblogging. So, I wanted to indicate in some way that the (former? haha) adults on that list are 'originals' -- or models -- in whom young people might find inspiration, resonance, and all that good sh... stuff. This may be an overly serious interpretation on my part, and god knows no adult is perfectly worthy of emulation but I've always believed that we should strive to be so, anyway, in whatever small but meaningful way we can. Catherine, you're not just 'following along.' In what you write, the way you see the world around you and convey it, is a perfectly good modeling of things. It ain't just literary, after all... 'tis life itself that we're weblogging about -- the bits and pieces of it that we string here from day to day like beads or blossoms that, seen whole and over time, is a perfectly beautiful lei. [OK, sermonette and purple prose end here. heh.]

Anyway, the other obvious title possibility, 'friends,' wasn't accurate, as many of the students on the texts and silences list are friends as well and besides, the TV show of the same name has that word copylefted, for all intents and purposes. *smirk* I did think about using urtexts back in middle-summer, as the original AIC list was evolving and I already had a small coterie of non-students who were weblogging as well. But the title seemed awfully obscure (not to mention pretentious, har!) but now, as I've thought more deeply on it, it surely fits. It is hopeful on my part, and maybe even presumptuous and onerously burdensome and if so I apologize for that and also for this run-on sentence, but I clearly would like the people on that list-formerly-known-as-adults to consider themselves, at least within this limited weblogging sphere, as a kind of model (if not outright mentor) to the young people who are at the heart of this weblogging community. Heaven knows there are not enough mentors. There may be millions of angels, who all fit on the heads of countless pins, but not enough mentors, believe me. [Hey! The sermonette did continue... ah, shucks. Oh well, that's clearly my cue to quit for the nonce, and go for a run or something.]

[ photo note: was looking for a picture of a lei, since i invoked one, and found the one above (click for whole scene). last weekend, saw this delightful troupe of kids doing hula dancing and singing at a nearby shopping center lawn. lest you think hula is only for girls, boys dance the hula, too. cute! heheh. ]

circa 2:30 p.m.

Went biking down the coast instead, parked my okole (Hawaiian for "ass") at Puamana Beach Park, and read some more about the Battle of Shiloh, which earned Union general Ulysses Grant the nickname "Butcher," among the Confederates. (Candace, are you sure you're NOT related to U.S. [Unconditional Surrender] Grant? *smirk*). Photo snapped shortly before I fell asleep on the ground... the book/battle wasn't THAT boring -- it's the humid weather, honestly. I'm really not THIS lazy. ;-)

more weblog housekeeping notes...
for the terminally bored or the dangerously obsessive-compulsive among us. ;-)

Ok, here's something I stumbled onto recently. You can see how many hits your weblog has gotten on an hourly basis, by simply adding the string /stats/hourlyhits to the end of your weblog URL. An example: yesterday's hits record for Quad's weblog was unintentionally droll. It went something like this: one, one, THIRTY?!?!, one, two, three... LOL. It was funny because the 30 hits happened at 7 a.m. Wonder why? ;-) Check it out:

There was more to the hits count, but I cut out many hours, so that the list won't be too long. Just wanted to highlight the sudden spike at the unholy hour of 7 in the a.m.! By 11 (9 a.m. Hawaii), I have logged on and contributed to Quad's hits at that time. By the way, there is no such thing as ZERO hits, which explains why, in the dead of night (regardless of time zone) there's always at least one hit: it must be the counter-bot hitting the weblog and counting itself, recursively.

Uh, Jason...? The word doesn't exactly belong to me... but you're welcome, I guess. *giggle* And I'm not just linking to Jason's weblog today because he cites me... his Stanford app essay is perfectly wonderful, and a must-read. So go read! ^_^

{ net.casting }
^